


Specialist

by AdAbolendam



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angsty Philinda, Bahrain, Broken Friendship, F/M, Tahiti, Theta Protocol, Trust Issues, pre-season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdAbolendam/pseuds/AdAbolendam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson's had enough experience to know not to try and fix May when she is broken. But he wouldn't be Phil Coulson if he didn't try.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Specialist

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

“There was a time that would have been true,” she said. 

Her voice was so low, he wondered if she had even meant for him to hear it. 

“It’s not now?” He asked. “What’s changed?”

“Where do you want me to start?” 

It was a statement, not a question. For all his feigned naivety, he knew that they were not the same people that they were a year ago. They still fought together, drank together and bantered together, but there was a distance between them that had not been there before: a barrier that could not be named or crossed. He felt it when he hesitated before knocking on the door to her room after work hours, when before he would have just walked in. He saw it when she plastered on the expressionless mask over a debriefing in his office, when she used to relax and show the weariness she felt after a difficult mission. 

Now, with Daisy gone, Lash dead, and May’s increased isolation and stoicism as the only indicator that she was feeling any of it, the space between them was more apparent than ever.

What _had_ changed? Where had it begun? 

As he thought back to the events of the last year, Phil Coulson realized that it could have been anything: Lincoln’s death, Hive, him killing Ward, Rosalind Price, her leaving with Andrew, Theta Protocol… 

Theta Protocol.

It always came back to that damn helicarrier. 

_“You’ve been lying to me since SHIELD fell.”_

_“We don’t owe each other anything.”_

_“I should have stopped you.”_

Things had never been the same between them after that. 

He had a lot of time to think about it after she left, about how it must have been for her. She was surrounded by enemy combatants that had all been her friends. Then those same people: Bobbi, Mack, Gonzales… good agents, good people, had started to show her the proof of his lies. How long had she resisted before she had agreed to take a seat on the Council? How long had she stood up for him, insisting that they were misguided, before they had broken her with the truth?

He never asked.

By the time he had recovered from his knee-jerk indignation, she was gone. It would have been devastating to have the rug pulled out from under you like that. He should know. 

She did the same to him.

“Is this about Theta Protocol?” He demanded. 

If it were possible, she became even more distant as her eyes lost their focus. 

“Phil, I don’t want to talk about this,” she said woodenly.

May tried to close the door to her room and he blocked it with his foot.

“Move,” she commanded.

“It was compartmentalization,” he explained. “SHIELD does it all the time.”

She folded her arms, expression unchanged. There was nothing behind her eyes. Nothing. He could not remember the last time he had seen her look anything other than irritated or mildly concerned. 

It pissed him off. 

Everything in their lives was falling apart and she was hiding everything behind that damned façade. He wanted to rip that calm, indifferent mask off her face. 

“You set the standard on that, May,” Coulson goaded. “You were the first to hide the truth for the ‘greater good.’ Maybe if you hadn’t, I would have been more likely to share company secrets that could have ended up biting you in the ass.”

She did not jump at the obvious bait. She did not apologize or attack him for not trusting her. She did not get angry. 

Her shoulders slumped a little and she sighed.

“I didn’t set the standard, Phil,” she countered. “SHIELD did. SHIELD taught us to keep secrets for the greater good. We were right to hide the truth when we were asked to.”

Coulson thought of the price they had to pay for those lies. How he had shot her with an ICER and kept her cuffed in the middle of a battle because he could not trust her. How she had left him with her ex-husband for months because he had demonstrated how little she mattered to him.

“No, we weren’t,” he said softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” May replied. “It’s done. I’m tired, Phil.”

It was his queue to leave, but he didn’t take it.

“How can you keep it all locked away?” He asked. “Daisy’s gone. Lincoln’s dead. Your ex-husband is dead. How can you just stand there and act like this isn’t all affecting you?”

“Because I’m a specialist,” she answered. “It’s what I’m good at. I’m good at protecting people, at killing people, at following orders. Emotions don’t help you do that. I’m not a wife or a mother. I’m not a good friend. I’m an agent of SHIELD.”

“God, Melinda,” Phil said. “Is that really what you think? That fighting is the only thing you are any good at?”

“Isn’t it?”

The question was a challenge, daring him to give credence to all of her failures. Hadn’t she left Andrew? Hadn’t she shot a girl in cold-blood, just as she was planning a family of her own? Hadn’t Daisy left, seeking a solace that May could not give her?

He would never convince her she was wrong on those counts, even if he did not believe she held the blame for any of them. But there was one thing he might persuade her of. 

“You are a good friend,” he said.

May rolled her eyes and he knew what she was thinking. 

_Would they even be having this conversation if that were true?_

“You’re my best friend,” Coulson continued. “The best friend I’ve ever had.”

The right corner of her mouth twitched just a fraction.

“I don’t know if that says more about me or you,” she scoffed.

“Probably a little of both,” he admitted. 

“I can’t be that person anymore, Phil,” she said. 

May looked past him, eyes blindly fixed on some point behind him. 

“What person?”

“The person that you used to— I can’t get close to you, to anyone, and do my job,” she stated.

“Melinda—

“Phil,” she interrupted, looking him square in the eye again. “I know what I do well and what I don’t. You want me to keep watching your back? You want me to keep making sure we all get back in one piece? You have to give me this.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but the words died on his tongue. 

_“You have to give me this.”_

It was the same thing she had said before she transferred to Administration after Bahrain. No amount of cajoling, disappointed scowls or pleading with her to come with him when Tony Stark had first appeared on SHIELD’s radar had made her budge. 

_“The Avenger’s Initiative is a completely different type of field work, May,”_ he had insisted.

_“Really? Because it sounds like Index Asset Evaluation and Intake: the exact situation I am trying to avoid.”_

_“May—_

_“Coulson. You keep saying you want to help? Go. This is what you have always wanted. This is why you joined SHIELD. I am only going to hold you back.”_

_“That’s not—_

_“I don’t trust myself in the field anymore, Phil,”_ May said firmly. _“I sure as hell don’t trust myself to keep you safe. You want me to get better? You have to go. You have to give me this.”_

She had been right. 

She was bored and miserable in admin, but it had given her time to heal. 

Whatever she was going through now, she was beyond his reach. 

“Okay, May,” he acquiesced finally. “If that’s what you need.”

He withdrew his foot from her door and took a step back. Something flickered in her eyes for a second. Some spark in those dark hollows. Then it was gone.

“But just so you know,” he couldn’t help but add. “I’m not giving up on you.”

This time, she did smile, just a fraction. A small, sad smile that stopped before it reached her eyes.

“I know,” she replied. “Why do you think I’m still here?”

Then she closed the door to her room and he was left in the dark hallway alone.


End file.
